1. Field of the Invention
The invention pertains to an apparatus for conveying and packaging articles. In particular, the invention relates to an apparatus for and process of removing food items from a stream of such items and placing them horizontally one upon another for subsequent packaging in a tray-like package and the like.
2. Background of the Invention
In the preparation of food items such as cookies, candies, and the like, after the cookies have been baked, they are transferred from an oven to a conveyor belt to be conveyed thereby to a packaging station. When the cookies are dropped onto the conveyor belt from the oven, they are arranged randomly. It was the prior practice in the baking industry to manually remove the cookies from the conveyor belt and stack them in appropriate groups (e.g., a group of three stacks, each stack having four cookies) for packaging in a tray- or cup-type package. Obviously, such practice is rather labor-intensive and time consuming.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,768,328 to Mims, the Inventor of the present invention, successfully automated the process of removing cookies from the moving conveyor belt and aligning them in a single group for placement in a tray-package. The disclosed system, known as the TRAY PACKER.TM. packing system, transports the cookies from the oven and drops them from the conveyor belt, one by one, along a slide. The cookies temporarily vertically lay to rest on an abutment surface and are then stacked vertically by a flipper mechanism. When the appropriate group is accumulated, the cookies are allowed to fall in their vertically stacked positions into a tray-type package. The TRAY PACKER.TM. packing system, however, requires that the cookies be dropped one by one from the conveyor belt, to form a single stack of cookies. Moreover, the system does not allow the cookies to be placed in packages in horizontal groups.